This invention relates to containers for small items, and more particularly containers for convenient use by an adult to store and dispense pills, capsules, or other small articles, while generally prohibiting access to such articles by children.
A variety of products, such as medicines, dietary supplements, and the like, are distributed in the form of small pills, tablets, or capsules. Although these products may be safe and effective when used properly, they can be extremely dangerous if improperly used, and the potential for improper use by children is especially high. Often, the size, shape, and bright colors of these items makes them resemble candy or other foodstuffs. Many children may be too young to appreciate the danger of eating things they are not supposed to, and even those who understand that some things should not be eaten may be unable to distinguish items which are safe to eat from potentially dangerous items.
Unfortunately, most pills and similar items cannot be made inherently safe from improper use by children and others who may be unable to appreciate the danger presented by the product. Accordingly, a variety of child-resistant containers have been developed to contain such products, permitting access to the contents by adults while precluding access to the contents by children. Many typical child resistant containers have the general size and shape of a conventional pill or tablet container, but include a child-resistant closure to prevent a child from gaining access to the contents. Such closures generally include an obstacle feature which is intended to be relatively difficult for a child to avoid but which is intended to be easily overcome by an adult.
For example, some of these closures require the user to undergo a relatively complicated or difficult-to-understand operation in order to open the container. The nature of the operation is usually not apparent from the structure of the container, but is explained by instructions printed upon the container or closure. Thus, a user must be able to read, understand, and remember an abstractly complex series of mechanical operations in order to release the closure. This obstacle tends to preclude operation by those children who are too young to appreciate the danger of consuming the contents of the container.
In addition to the abstract complexity of the operation which is required to release the closure, the operation is typically made difficult for a child to perform, by requiring significant strength, manual dexterity, or the ability to do several things simultaneously. For example, one common closure used with certain containers for prescription medications requires the user to urge the closure toward the container with significant force, while simultaneously rotating the closure with respect to the container until the closure is released. Another closure, commonly used with certain containers for non-prescription medicine, requires the user to angularly align a single index mark on the closure with a mating index mark on the container, and then apply significant upward pressure to a specific location on the closure, until it is released.
Unfortunately, although some of these prior art containers and closure combinations are effective in preventing children from opening the container, they are sometimes also effective in preventing the intended adult users from opening the containers. Many potential users suffer from one or more conditions which impair their strength or manual dexterity, and some of these people find opening the prior-art containers difficult or impossible. This is a significant disadvantage, because people who are ill and therefore need medication are the most likely to suffer from a condition which exacerbates the difficulty of opening the container.
Another disadvantage of prior art containers is that when the closure is removed, a large opening is exposed through which many items may pass easily. This makes it easy to lose a substantial portion of the container contents if the container is accidentally upset. People who have conditions which impair their strength or manual dexterity may be more likely to upset the container.
Also, since the closure of prior-art containers must be completely removed from the container to remove the contents, the closure is also subject to loss.
Further, a typical medication user needs only a small number of items of a particular type at any one time. For example, a user of an aspirin-containing pain relief medication might take one or two tablets at a time. Despite this usage pattern, conventional containers do not facilitate isolating and removing one or two of the items for use at one time. Instead, when a conventional pill container is employed, the user may insert his or her fingers into the container to select an item and drag it along an interior wall until it reaches the mouth of the container where the item may be grasped. This exposes all of the remaining items to contamination from extraneous matter carried on the user's fingers. Alternatively, the user may try to tip the container such that a desired number of items fall out, However, it is difficult to cause exactly the desired number of items to fall out. If more than the desired number fall out, the user must return them to the container, thereby exposing the unused items to contamination or loss. Although at first glance these may seem to be trivial barriers to use, there are persons having various impairments for whom extracting a desired number of items from a conventional container is very difficult.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,971,203 to Weinstein discloses a child-resistant pill dispenser which dispenses a small number of items. Weinstein discloses a cylindrical container body having a closed end and an open end. A cup shaped closure having an inner diameter slightly larger than the outer diameter of the container is telescopically mounted to cover the open end of the container. In one embodiment, the closure has a retaining peg or cam which engages a retaining groove provided on the container. The retaining groove is generally circumferential, but has attached thereto an additional section extending longitudinally toward the open end of the container. The retaining groove and cam cooperate so that when the cam is in the circumferential portion of the groove, the closure may generally rotate but is retained in a first longitudinal position. However, when the closure is rotationally positioned so that the cam can follow the retaining groove's longitudinal extension, the closure may be longitudinally displaced a small distance away from the container's closed end to a second longitudinal position. (in another embodiment, a retaining groove is provided on the closure, and a cam is provided on the container, but the components cooperate in much the same way.)
A dispensing orifice is provided in the container body near the open end. This dispensing orifice is normally covered by the closure. However, the closure has a matching orifice which is so located that the two orifices are overlappingly aligned only when the closure is in its second longitudinal position. Thus, in order to dispense an item, the closure must first be rotated to a predetermined rotational position to align the cam with the retaining groove's longitudinal extension, and then must be longitudinally displaced to align the dispensing orifices.
The Weinstein dispenser suffers from several significant disadvantages. Because the retaining groove's longitudinal extension section is connected to the circumferential section, the extension portion may be discovered by rotating the closure while applying slight pressure in the direction of the extension. When the cam reaches the extension, a slight bump may be felt, or the cam may enter the extension. Thus a child who happens upon the Weinstein dispenser and plays with it may easily defeat its child-resistant feature.
Another disadvantage of the Weinstein dispenser is when the closure is in its open, longitudinally displaced position, items in the container may become lodged between the open end of the container and the closure, thereby preventing the closure from being returned to its normal (closed) position. Also, Weinstein lacks a seal between the container and the closure, permitting moisture and extraneous materials to enter the container, even when closed, thereby contaminating the contents.
Another disadvantage is that the Weinstein dispenser is expensive and difficult to construct with modern automated equipment. Weinstein's dispensing orifices are oval-shaped and positioned in a manner that makes fabrication by popular and inexpensive injection molding techniques difficult, and requires additional manufacturing operations. Also, due to the configuration of the retaining groove and mating cam, the closure and the container must be suitably oriented in a predefined relationship when assembled together. It may also be necessary to install the cam as a separate manufacturing operation after the closure and the container have been assembled.